If you’re a gamer who haven’t heard the name Johnny Lee, you have to come out from under that rock you’re in.
Johnny Lee become famous for his youtube video on turning Nintendo Wii remote controller into a head-tracking device. Apparently, that one video sealed his reputation for making incredible innovative devices out of everyday objects, which you can see via his project blog.
Apparently, the original idea of head tracking is attracting some very big attention from very big game companies (or rather, big companies with gaming divisions).
Johnny Lee today introduced Project Natal on his project blog. It seems to me like a 3D camera with tracking capabilities. There is a public video demo of this, but of course, since it is a demo video, I doubt that the final product will be this seamless.
One thing that bothered me though.
The human tracking algorithms that the teams have developed are well ahead of the state of the art in computer vision research. The sophistication and performance of the algorithms rival or exceed anything that I’ve seen in academic research, never mind a consumer product.
Like what a commenter had said, I hope that Microsoft will allow the researchers to publish a paper for the scientific community. If the algorithms is really that good, then there will be definitely be more uses for in other areas as well, not just for entertainment.
However, all doubts aside, that is one unbelievably cool product if it ever goes to market. And if that really does happen, can we finally have a good Star Wars game where I can wield a lightsaber properly for once?
Tags: johnny lee, project natal
I don’t know if I like this. There is something to be said for using a hardware controller. Not having one just seems… Wrong. I don’t know. I mean, how to you play a driving game which requires you to make small directional adjustments without an actual wheel? How do you keep your hands steady and leveled for tasks that require precision when you have no point of reference?
It’s a great technology, and it will work great for Wii Sports type mindless fun. Some games will always require some controller though.